The Things I Know
by The Armadillo and the Elephant
Summary: Bella and Edward don't speak, Jasper thinks The Moody Bastard and his Virgin Bride need to get over it, and everyone's convinced that Student Body President Rosalie is having Edward's love-child. And then the real problems kick in. AH.
1. Chapter 1: Staring At The Rude Boys

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**Chapter One: Staring at the Rude Boys**

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There are three incontrovertible (and inconvenient) truths in my life.

Number One: There was no sense of karmic justice in the world. Case in point, I'd sacrificed myself on the altar of parental happiness and had got stuck living in an Outer Circle of Hell – or Forks, for the misinformed – in return.

Number Two: Upon leaving Phoenix, I had stupidly presumed that the further North I went, the less chance I had of running into Valley Girls. Unfortunately my first day at Forks High had shoved me into harsh reality.

Number Three: Edward Cullen was a selfish, arrogant, misogynistic pig to whom I was barely a speck of dirt from where he sat on his lofty Cloud Nine perch in aforementioned Valley Girls' fantasies.

Therefore, naturally, when Renee asks me what I make of the rolling-haystack, one street town she hightailed it out of I tell her that it's great, apart from the miserable weather, and when Charlie asks me what I plan on doing after high school I say that I haven't really thought about it even though I've compiled a dossier on colleges in sunny climes and hidden it under my bed. My one salvation in Forks, and the only person I might actually miss when I leave, is my best friend Jacob. We'd hit it off immediately, hanging out while his dad and mine were acting like the teenagers we were supposed to be, and taking secret rides on the motorbike he'd clobbered together from God knows how many scrap yards. The only downside, and it was a major downside that would have made it onto my list of unalterable truths had Edward Cullen and his perfectly gelled coif not existed, was that he was pretty much morally obliged to go to the school on the Reservation while I wallowed in the awfulness of Forks High. I'd tried to persuade Charlie to send me to Jake's school but apparently there was no such thing as "converting" because of our beer swilling, check plaid-ing, non Quileute-ing ancestors. It was massively unfair.

And so, to make up for the separate schools, Jake and I had ended up talking to each other nearly every other night – whether by phone or in person – and Friday night had become our weekly activity/complaining about Forks session. We each had problems, and while mine was over six foot tall with freakishly bronze hair, his was, to quote him and his potty mouth directly, "a bitch with balls". So when he'd turned up at Casa Swan with a scowl on his face that would frighten the wolves let alone the horses, I'd had a pretty good idea where his bad mood had originated.

"What's she done this time?" I asked as I let him in. He slammed the door shut with so much force that the frame actually shook. I winced, "And can you not take it out on Charlie's woodwork?"

He turned to me with a smirk, "Since when do you care about woodwork, Bells?"

"Since I have to vacuum." I sensed his remorse and quickly tried to change the subject, "Plus, Charlie's been harbouring a tin of the most revolting yellow coloured paint in the basement. I'm genuinely afraid that he'll see paint chips and the next thing I know I'll look out the window and see a tin man and a cowardly lion in the driveway." Thankfully that seemed to improve his mood because the tentative smirk grew wider.

"That was a road, not a door."

"Same difference," I retorted as we plopped down on the sofa Charlie had vacated barely an hour ago when he'd headed over to Billy's. "So, what's the problem?" He sighed and chucked a parcel on the coffee table. I looked at it curiously but when Jake offered no explanation I let it slide. "Let me guess, it begins with an 'L' and rhymes with 'Se-ah'?"

"Yep." I looked at him as he stared at the cracks in the ceiling. "I mean, I understand that she's pissed – I'd be too if I was her. Not that Sam would run off with a cousin of mine, or be with me to begin with..." he trailed off and I stifled a grin. I mustn't have been careful enough because he scrunched up his face in the manner I had labelled 'Jacob, Embarrassed'. "How many times, Bella? I'm just going to have to let Cullen down gently because I'm definitely not...that way inclined." He punctuated this with a decisive nod.

"Then why do you never have a girlfriend?" I hope he caught the teasing in my eyes.

"Just because I'm not bed-hopping every weekend doesn't mean I don't have game." I swear I couldn't help the cackle that came out of my mouth then, or the fit of giggles that followed it. Alas, my friend didn't see it the same way. "Bella! I got game!" Unfortunately, this made me laugh harder. "Bella!" This time it was a strangled cry, and so I decided to at least act like the adult age I was rapidly approaching.

"Sorry!" I wiped my eyes to disperse any lingering tears of joy.

"Focus!"

"Ok, I'm listening," I cleared my throat to add gravitas to the statement. He looked at me, askance. "Really. Go ahead."

"Right, so we all decided to head down to First Beach today 'cos, you know, there was sun," I nodded at this, I'd spent the time reading in the backyard, "And it was really great. Emily made a picnic and everything," his voice grew wistful. Motorbikes aside, food was Jacob's greatest passion. "Then she turns up – and, you know, she basically looks like a guy since she hacked her hair off, puts on that crappy music she listens to and lights a cigarette."

"Wait – she's smoking now?"

Jake nodded, "So, anyway, she gets up, walks over to us and I'm thinking that something bad's going to happen. And then she just sits between Emily and Sam, turns to her and blows smoke in her face." Okay, that was kind of bad. "Then she says, wait for it, 'another cousin of mine's coming to town Sam, do you want her number?'" I think he expected me to be horrified by Leah's words but, as I'd told him what felt like a million times, there was a huge chunk of me that leaned towards Team Leah. "Bella, isn't that fucked up?"

"Jake, she walked in on her long-term boyfriend and her favourite cousin rounding second base. On her bed. I'd say the eff-ed up boat has passed."

He slumped further back into the sofa, annoyance sketched on his face, "You're such a girl, Bella. And, besides, Emily's way nicer than that bitch."

"Not the point. Leah's just hurting," something occurred to me, "Did you even invite her out to First Beach with you?" I glanced at him. Clearly he hadn't. "Jacob! You're such an idiot." To reinforce my point, I gave him a light slap on his arm to which he reacted like I'd shot him. And he said I was the girl. "So, she's lost her boyfriend, her cousin and now her friends." I hoped he'd see the light and finally understand what I was saying because I was really starting to lose my patience as regards this situation. Leah had never been my favourite person in the world, but I figured it was time for people to cut her some slack.

Jake mulled over what I'd said for a few minutes then folded his arms and propped his feet up on the coffee table, "Nah, she's just a heinous bitch."

Really, there was no point because, apparently, my best friend was nothing more than a big kid. "I give up." I mimicked the way he was sitting, which – to be honest – didn't work too well since Jacob's stupid male adolescent hormones had propelled him to well over six foot while my meek female ones had forced me to develop a crick in my neck from looking up at him for the past year. Stupid male hormones and their stupid tall-ness. We sat in silence for a good five minutes while Jacob stewed over my words and I pretended to stew over his.

"Are you mad at me?"

"No." It was the truth.

"C'mon Bells, talk to me then."

"I am talking to you." He drew a frustrated breath before removing his legs from the table and reaching for the package he'd brought with him. He placed the plastic bag in my hand and told me to open it. "Is this a present?" I asked suspiciously. He knew I didn't like presents.

"Nope. Besides, I took it out of the library so even if it was a present then you'd have to give it back in a couple of days. That'd be a bad present."

I mumbled something about all presents being bad presents but all I got in response was a soft chuckle. I really wished he would stop looking at me while I unwrapped whatever it was because that was the worst feeling in the world, opening something and, even if you really liked it, feeling like such a phoney – all in all, the way I'd felt for seventeen years worth of Christmases. Well, it was probably more like fourteen because the first festive memory I had was of me falling off a tricycle Charlie had hauled all the way down from Washington to Phoenix when I was three: maybe that was the reason he had stopped Christmas visiting soon after. Or maybe it was something to do with my pre-school teacher who Renee was dating.

Inside the plastic bag was a very tattered, very yellow video tape. I read the title. "Romeo and Juliet? The good one?" I mean, I appreciated Leonardo di Caprio as much as the next girl but there was only so much of a cross-dressing Mercutio I could take. "Are we watching it tonight?" He nodded and I threw myself at him, "Thank you!" He laughed as I untangled myself from him.

"I figured you could do with the cheering up, you know, with the whole going back to the cess-pit that is Forks High. And Cullen," he added darkly.

"Oh he's a whole other class of cess-pit," I tried to laugh it off, "Besides, it's not like he actually does anything to me." That was, in essence, my problem.

"I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him." It was funny because the muscles he had recently developed suggested that he would actually be able to throw Edward Cullen quite a respectable distance. But taking one look at the tight expression on his face, I decided against telling him that and instead opted for something considerably more PC and less likely to induce violence.

"Jake, if he hasn't said one word to me in the year we've sat beside each other in Bio, then he's not going to start now when graduation's barely three months away," I reasoned, hoping the bulging vein in his forehead would begin to un-bulge. "And anyway, he's got a flock of girls hovering around him all the time, so I doubt he'd notice me even if I wanted him to. Which I don't," I added hastily.

Jake turned his face towards me, "I'd notice you."

Crap. Foot in mouth syndrome had led me into the dark alley of unspoken feelings. Jacob had made sporadic references to me and him in a more than friendly capacity but they had all unfailingly occurred when he was taking covert mouthfuls of the whiskey his dad thought well hidden, so I'd pushed it into the deep recesses of my mind and had thought no more of it.

"Hey, how about we make a night of it?" I said in an attempt to shift the path his mind seemed to be set on, "Zeffirelli, chocolate and tortilla chips?"

"Zeffirelli?"

"The film." His expression remained cloudy. "The director."

"Oh, sure," he paused, "by the way Bella, that whole chocolate and tortilla chip thing's totally gross."

"Says the guy who at his dad's last barbecue managed to scoff seven hotdogs and top it off with third helpings of Emily's triple chocolate fudge cake." I looked at him with a smile. "I can so see your point." I dodged the cushion he threw at me, laughing. "But we'll need to go to the store 'cos there's nothing in the house but leftover lasagne." He turned up his nose at the mention of my signature dish – amazingly, there was one meal that Jake's stomach couldn't tolerate. Not that it hadn't tried on more than one occasion.

"We taking my bike?"

I stared at him with incredulity, "Yeah, and then Charlie can bust your ass for having his only daughter on a jumbled together motorcycle before sentencing me to house arrest until I leave for college." To be fair, my less than stellar history with vehicles that didn't have four wheels sort of justified his concern. Clearly, he hadn't forgotten Tricycle-gate either.

"So, your car then?"

I nodded, "Uh huh."

The supermarket, which admittedly had more of the market less of the super, was only a few minutes drive from my house. It was also, fortuitously for some, the furthest away from the police station as it was possible to be in this town which attracted the dregs of society who came looking for a good, unarrested time, i.e. my classmates. I usually tried to avoid the place on weekend nights because of said miscreants, namely Cullen and his posse. I just didn't relish the opportunity to get blatantly ignored outside of Biology as well.

We pulled up in the parking lot and I saw possibly the most detested vehicle in the History of Man parked a few spaces over. I mean, what eighteen year old thinks to himself that the perfect car is a Volvo? Maybe it was different to the others who'd spent their entire lives in this place, but I'd always associated them with middle-aged accountants and mildly-successful lawyers. Grimacing, I got out of the car and very deliberately did not look in that direction. I think we may have made it to the entrance in record time.

I let Jake pick whatever crap he wanted because at that moment all I cared about was getting back to my comfy sofa and a man who, had he been real and living in the 21st Century, wouldn't have gone near a Volvo with a ten foot bargepole. The middle-aged cashier glared at us when we went to pay and I wanted to tell her that I wasn't part of the mob who were indulging in underage drinking and other such activities outside, but I didn't.

We were so tantalisingly and unbearably close to getting into my truck without too many problems – we'd even shoved the food into it – but it was at that point that Jake decided to notice a bike that hadn't been there when we'd entered the store. And by notice I mean salivate over.

"Man, that is one hot piece of shit," he gasped, eying it up. Was that wrong? Were people supposed to refer to motorized vehicles that way?

"Jake, can we please go now?" I really, really wanted to leave asap because even if Cullen deigned not to speak to me he had one hell of a glare on him. The guy was plain intimidating.

"No, wait. I have to see this baby," he replied reverently, moving closer to it.

"Jake, the dip'll go off." I was whining, I knew it and accepted it.

"It's canned. We've got a good few years yet." I cursed both conventional logic and whoever had invented the can, because they were completely screwing with my plan.

I was weighing up leaving him and going to sit in my relatively unloved truck when I heard a very familiar drawl shouting over from a few metres away.

"Hey, be careful with Desdemona! She's fragile."

Seriously, I was giving up when it came to men and their means of transportation. Who the frick named their motorbike Desdemona?

Jake's head flipped up in the direction of the voice, "Didn't mean any harm. She's a beauty," he gave a low whistle. She's also a vehicle, I lectured him in my mind. "What is she, vintage?"

"1975."

"Cool."

The owner of the bike was sauntering over, cigarette tight in the corner of his mouth and blonde hair almost white under the fluorescent street lights. "Jasper Whitlock," he said, holding out his hand.

"Jacob Black." I could have rung Jake's neck when he took Jasper's hand. When he rediscovered his manners after a period of seventeen years, I'd moved past neck-ringing and into murderous rage. "And this is Bella Swan," he said, motioning me over with his hand. I had to go, otherwise Jake would make a scene and the situation would get even worse. Recognition dawned in Jasper's eyes when I met them.

"Hey Bella, how was your spring break?" He lifted his hand for me to slap. Did I want to slap his hand? Would familiarity breed even more contempt? To be on the safe side, I decided against it and he lowered his arm, his lips twitching into a smile.

"Good." Monosyllabic was the way to go. Then I wondered if a non-reply combined with an unslapped hand would equal impoliteness, I mean I wanted to be hostile not rude. "Yours?"

Jasper's smile grew wider, "Can't remember most of it."

"Oh."

"That's the best way though, isn't it man?" Jake interrupted. How in the world would he know when the most alcohol he'd ever consumed amounted to half a bottle of whiskey over the space of six months? I may have to seriously reconsider his best friend status because I was sure as hell that Angela wouldn't do this to me. "Do you guys know each other?" Please Jake, be quiet. I wondered if I could transmit to him via brain signals that Jasper Whitlock was meant to be his mortal enemy.

"Bella here's in my History class," Jasper drawled, taking a drag from his cigarette.

"Oh." I could tell that didn't mean much to Jacob.

"Jasper's best friends with Edward Cullen," I offered, hoping this would stop his sudden and remarkable interest in his fellow motorbike owner.

"Oh," he dragged it out as far as it would go.

Jasper took another puff, "Do you know Edward then, Jacob?" Was he trying to channel James Dean? Or possibly Marlon Brando? Steve McQueen? In any case, it seemed Jacob was channelling the spirit of the God of T.M.I.

"Just from what Bella's said."

No. He. Didn't.

Please.

Someone tell me he didn't just say that to Cullen's second in command.

"Oh, yeah, you and Edward are Bio partners," Jasper reasoned nonchalantly as he blew out a cloud of smoke.

He knew that?

How did he know that?

I nodded, praying he couldn't see the scarlet elephant I was sure was stampeding across my face. A blaring horn prevented further humiliating revelations though as Jasper turned round and stuck up his middle finger at the person who had sounded it. When he moved, I saw who it was.

Edward Cullen, leaning on the side of his Volvo, glowering.

I'm pretty sure that glower was directed at me because I'd spent quite a considerable amount of time deciphering his expressions. My guess was that this one was in equal parts Get-Away-From-Those-Losers and Bella-Swan-I'll-Never-Speak-To-You-Ever with a dash of Oh-My-Jesus-Christ-My-Volvo-Rocks-Way-More-Than-Bella-Swan's-Heap-Of-Crap. Hey, I'd never had a conversation with the guy, so that gave me license to let him borrow my catchphrases. Not that 'heap of crap' had ever been very high on that list – but it was sort of like how I'd never complained that there wasn't a Starbucks in Forks when the diner struggled to serve drinkable coffee. It was all relative.

"Listen, I've got to go or else Edward will have a coronary but it was nice meeting you Jacob. Always good to meet a guy who appreciates Desdemona." Really? "Bella, see you in History." The horn sounded again, three beats in quick succession. Someone clearly had ants in their pants. Again, I forced myself not to look in the direction of The Volvo Owner. Jasper turned to go, smiling that full smile of his that often reduced girls who weren't me into blubbering wrecks and appearing to murmur something between puffs. I couldn't be sure but I thought I made out the words 'Edward' and 'bastard'. I must say, I felt rather validated – after all, if his best friend felt that way then I was perfectly entitled to as well.

I watched him slowly walk back in Cullen's direction and hand him the cigarette he'd been smoking. To my amusement and considerable surprise, Cullen crushed the cigarette under his boot. You could hear the yells of annoyance from where we were.

"So that's Edward Cullen," Jake said to me as we were belting up in my truck.

"Yep."

He looked troubled, "You know, I've never actually met him."

"Oh, really?" I replied, distracted as I attempted to get out of the parking lot.

"Yeah," he paused and I could tell he was stalling. It took the length of the song they were playing on the radio for him to speak again. "You didn't tell me he was so good looking."

I snorted, "Are you sure you're not harbouring same sex tendencies?"

"Shut up!" Note to self, questioning Jacob's sexuality was an excellent way to get him to zip it.

I spent the rest of that night trying to focus on Romeo and ignore the fact that not only had Edward Cullen and I crossed paths (sort of) but that Jacob had divulged way too much information to said person's best friend and partner in crime. It wasn't that I didn't like Jasper but I knew that he was far from the innocent creature he occasionally chose to act as. From what I'd heard from Angela, whose Aunt worked in the school office, he was close to flunking pretty much every class and was one more public drunkenness offense away from being expelled.

As I lay on my bed that night, having finally said adios to Jake a half hour before, I wondered how, unlike his friend, Cullen was not failing every subject. In fact, I was almost certain that he'd aced his last set of exams – he'd definitely got top marks in Biology anyway, to my complete shock and horror: I'd been counting on him to fail and therefore be shipped back out into non-AP Bio. It had not been a pleasant experience when he'd walked into Mr Banner's classroom at the start of the year and slumped into his usual seat next to me. I'd spent the entire lesson wondering how I could have such bad luck.

Stupid rich people, I thought as I stuffed my head deeper into my pillow, had probably hired their stupid rich son a private tutor.

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Disclaimer: Twilight, of course, belongs to Stephenie Meyer. "Staring at The Rude Boys" belongs to The Ruts.


	2. Chapter 2: Don't Upset The Rhythm

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**Chapter Two: Don't Upset The Rhythm**

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Since I'd been old enough to realise that Mondays meant an escape from my mom and a free pass into the school library, or bookcase as it was in elementary school, I'd relished them, but after reaching Junior High and coming to the conclusion that I was a lone albino in a sea of tan, I'd come to regard them as a means to an end. I had to go to school in order to pass my classes so I could graduate and go to a college far away from parental figures and Valley Girls. Forks High, I reminded myself as I did every Monday morning, was my get out of jail free card. All I had to do was tell Renee and Charlie that. I cringed as I thought of the conversation – Charlie pretending that he was unaffected by my news as he went out fishing and Renee wondering why I didn't want to hop on the hippy bandwagon in Florida: I really wasn't keen on telling her that I'm almost certain that I'd be the worst hippy ever to hit hippy-dom.

"Bells! You better get a move on or you're going to be late!" Charlie's brusque voice warned from what sounded like the kitchen. Moments later I heard something pop and him swearing: he'd burnt his toast as he did every morning. Sometimes I wondered just how he had managed to live on his own for such a long time without burning the house down, a belief I think I unwittingly imparted on him every evening when I cooked dinner. Then again, part of the reason I'd taken up cooking duties in the first place had been because Renee actually had almost burnt down our first real house when I was twelve. Hence one of my only skills being the ability to make a damn good lasagne.

"Bells!"

I tossed the covers off from over my head and glared at the alarm clock that had been going off a long while before my trip down memory lane, groaning when I saw the time. Charlie was wrong. I wasn't going to be late, I was going to be very late.

A rushed morning routine and non-existent breakfast ensured that I got to school with five minutes until Home Room. Once in the familiar room with its familiar cat smell (how it had developed a cat smell I didn't know, although popular opinion had its own theories), I dived into my regular seat next to Angela, trying to ignore Jessica who had cut all ties with me when Mike Newton asked me to last year's prom.

"Oh my God Bella. Did you run here?" Hi Jessica, nice to see you again too.

"No, just walked really fast." I didn't need to add the 'so I didn't crack my skull open on the linoleum floor'. How bad would that be? Death by linoleum? Angela smiled at me and waved slightly in greeting, occupied as she was discussing the school paper with Eric. Apparently Eric wanted to take it in a 'new direction'. A new direction that included a gossip column and a men's advice section. I raised my eyebrows in amusement, imagining the possible outcomes – none of which particularly screamed Pulitzer Prize to me.

A few seconds later, Mrs Goff bundled into the room, her arms piled high with folders. Eventually she dropped the pile onto her desk and several brightly coloured pieces of paper floated towards the floor. I didn't do the subject, but I assumed that what she spurted afterwards was something very rude in Spanish.

"Hola class!" A few half-hearted 'holas' followed, none of which were mine: I'd completely failed French, which I'd only taken in the first place after a mammoth Gerard Depardieu marathon, I wasn't going to risk getting sucked into another language no matter how innocent it seemed. "Come on, you can do better than that! Hola class!" Unfortunately Mrs Goff was one of those teachers whose careers had turned them towards the slightly eccentric and overenthusiastic end of the personality spectrum. Her excitement had failed to usher a significant improvement in our greeting and so she turned with a sigh back to her desk.

She was in the middle of taking register when there was a sharp rap on the classroom door. "Come in!" I briefly wondered if the possessor of the knock would be the bearer of any excitement and so I was disappointed when Rosalie Hale sauntered into the room, her three inch heels clip-clopping on the floor. "Oh, Rosalie! What can I do for you today?" Mrs Goff had clearly strayed onto the hopelessly optimistic path as well because her beaming smile was at odds with the scowl on Rosalie's beautiful but now contorted face.

"Senora Goff," Senora Goff my eye, "the Principal told me I could say a little something to the Senior Class, just to clear up a few...unsavoury rumours." I heard Jessica snigger to my left. Huh, could be interesting. Rosalie didn't wait for the all-clear but instead whirled towards the rest of us, "As you all know, I'm your Student Body President." She was: I hadn't voted and had rued that fact when the winner had been announced. "As such, I have certain responsibilities one of which is to uphold the name and reputation of this school." Did Forks High have a reputation? If so with who? The wolves? "It has...come to my attention... that certain people have been spreading slanderous gossip about me around town." Really? How had I missed this? Oh yes, self-imposed solitary confinement in my room for a fortnight mulling over my sad and pathetic excuse for a life. "I would just like to say, here and now, that every rumour was a complete lie," she smiled sweetly, "And I hope everyone had a great Spring Break and is all fired up for the semester to come. Go Spartans!" Oh my God, forget about death by linoleum, death by school spirit overload would be much worse.

As soon as she left, the decibel count soared. "What happened?" I asked Angela, who actually socialised outside of me.

"I heard some people say she was caught in the back of the Principal's car...you know," Angela admitted hesitantly. It's fair to say neither of us particularly had our ear to the ground.

The whiff of gossip had apparently caused Jessica to momentarily forget that she hated me because she tapped me on the shoulder, "Then there was the whole drug controversy as well. Apparently she was caught snorting you-know-what off the chest of the quarterback from a high school in Port Angeles." The maniacal gleam in her eyes frightened me a bit. "And Lauren told me that some guys spotted her buying a pregnancy test – and that Edward Cullen's the baby daddy."

Oh great. He had to be involved in this somewhere, didn't he?

"Oh my God, did you hear about Jasper?" Apparently once you'd gotten Jessica on the gossip train it would take a lot for her to get off it again.

"What about him?" I replied, reaching for my schedule in my bag.

"Well we were all hanging out at the Thriftway last night," She was there? At least she hadn't seen me, "And these biker dudes came up and were, like, completely revolting and started saying things and so Jasper just stands up, stubs his cigarette out and goes completely bat-shit." Huh. I idly wondered if they'd insulted Desdemona. "And guess what? One guy gets hospitalised and Jasper walks away without a scratch." Maybe she expected me to be scandalised by this but, really, Jasper going crazy was just old news.

The bell rang and I got up to head to my first class of the day, grateful that I could escape Forks High's very own Gossip Girl. Unfortunately that escape was going to lead me to my least favourite class in the whole world: History. I groaned. Once again I reminded myself that at least this was the last proper semester of high school – unless I failed History completely and ended up working in Newton's Outfitters for the rest of my life. Crap. Epic Fail.

I trudged to class, tripping over first a bag then a foot, when someone laid their arm across my shoulders and drew me closer to them. Strange...it didn't feel like Mike's...

"Hey Bella, how's life?"

W.T.F?

"Jasper?" I readily admit it was a question rather than a statement.

"In the flesh, alive and kicking, et cetera, et cetera," he did that big smile again. Hah! I was immune! In shock, but still immune.

"What are you do-...?" I trailed off, clearly astonishment combined with rising panic had stopped the messages from my brain reaching my mouth.

"Going to History..." He must have thought I was a complete idiot which, at that precise moment, I wasn't ruling out.

"I mean," I stuttered, blushing, "What are you doing with the...uhm...arm..."

He looked genuinely stunned, then apologetic, but he didn't let me go, "Sorry, usually people don't mind. Worried about what your boyfriend'll think?" He quirked his lips again. Ok, so we're going to ignore the cuts on his hand then.

"My what?"

"Your boyfriend, your guy, your lover, the Angel to your Buffy-"

I was temporarily distracted from my mortification, "You watch that show?"

At least he had the dignity to look mildly ashamed about it. "Don't go changing the subject, c'mon, dish the dirt."

Yeah right.

"He's not my boyfriend," I said, tucking a stray lock of hair behind my ear, "And anyway he doesn't go to this school so..."

"While the cat's away...you're a sly thing Bella." There was a wicked twinkle in his eyes.

"I didn't-I didn't mean-"

He laughed, the sound conjuring up the image of golden fields from his native South, "I know but Bella, if you and me are going to be friends then you've got to accept that I have this irrational urge to tease." And fight.

Friends? What? Pause, rewind.

To my utter shame, I squeaked, "F-friends?"

"Yeah."

"Why?" Was that rude? God, that was rude, wasn't it?

We'd reached the classroom and I fully hoped and expected him to separate from me and slope off to where he'd sat before Spring Break but his arm was apparently surgically attached to me because he directed me to my own desk. "You seem an ok sort of girl. Plus, your not-boyfriend seemed to have a good grasp of what is and is not a good automobile so that means that you keep good company. The little details, Bella, are very important." Finally, he released me and I chucked my bag on the floor before taking refuge in the hard, grey plastic chair. "Just out of interest, if he's not your boyfriend then what are you doing out with him on a Friday night?" He added, shuffling into the chair beside mine. I could see he winced slightly when he sat, one of the few pieces of evidence that backed up what Jessica had said to me earlier. Well, if he was going to ignore it then I would too.

"Why are you-?"

"Why am I what? So charming? It's the Texan upbringing." He'd swung his shoulder bag off and tossed it on the desk. I couldn't be sure, because his back was to me, but I thought that that grin was still plastered across his face.

"I meant, why are you sitting beside me?" After realising that sounded a tad harsh, I continued, "Don't you usually sit with Vera? Over there?" i.e. not here.

"Oh, her parents found out she was knocked up so they've taken her off to some Convent School." Did I miss everything? He must have caught my incredulous expression because he verified, "It's not mine, I swear." The smile vanished suddenly and he grew as serious as I'd ever seen him be which, admittedly, wasn't much. "Seriously, my girlfriend would crucify me." He took a notebook out of his bag, not looking at me.

"It wasn't that. I was just thinking about how everything just bypasses me: you know, I didn't even realise one of my teachers was pregnant until she went off on maternity leave." His laugh alerted me to the fact that the God of T.M.I. seemed to have left Jacob's body and entered mine.

Fortunately our teacher, a short, fuzzy-haired man who looked exactly like how you would describe a History teacher if pressed, chose this moment to make his grand entrance. Seriously, the man even wore a tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows – who wears that outside England? He was also possibly one of the most boring men in the Pacific Northwest whose teaching technique was to spread his notes in front of him on the desk then proceed to read them out word for word and without pause for the whole period. I usually used this class to catch up on some sleep or else doodle in the margins of my notepad but I couldn't exactly do this in front of Cullen's best friend who would, no doubt, go and report the entire sorry episode to him at lunch so by the time Biology swung around he would have even more grounds to contemptuously ignore me. Great.

I tried really, really hard to take notes but when I realised that the only words I could decipher were 'Civil War' and 'Yankees' I gave up and turned my head to glance at Jasper who was, no doubt, getting his forty winks.

Only he wasn't.

Jasper Whitlock was listening intently to Mr Morris drone on and on, nodding occasionally and frantically scribbling down what he said.

I had my second W.T.F. experience of the day.

The dirty cream clock above Mr Morris' head ticked loudly as it counted the seconds going past and I still couldn't tear my eyes away from Jasper. As if he sensed my gaze, he raised his eyes from the paper and smirked at me. Point taken.

I spent the rest of the class wondering if Angela's aunt was as reliable source of information as we'd assumed her to be because, on the evidence of what I could see with my own eyes, there was no way Jasper was failing all his subjects. By the time the bell rang I was so uncomfortable with my own preconceptions that I jumped up from my chair and rushed towards the door.

"You don't have to do that, you know." How could the man be smiling?

"Do what?" I dodged out of Tyler's way before he ran into me.

"Don't act all innocent," Jasper replied, slowly gathering up his things, "I told you you were a sly one." My eyes widened and I began to shake my head. "Maybe not sly but certainly not as meek and mild as you pretend to be." Ok, I was totally lost. "What I meant was that you don't have to hide the fact that Angela's aunt told you I was flunking all my classes." Oh God, how did he know? Was he psychic? Telepathic? Well, I was mortified at any rate. "Edward overheard you guys talking in the office."

Oh. Holy. Shit.

Crap. Double Crap. Hope a hole opens up in the floor kind of crap.

"Oh."

Jasper laughed. Well I'm glad someone found my humiliation a source of amusement. "Don't worry, I am," he continued, "Besides, we pump Mrs Cope for info too," he grimaced, "Wrong choice of vocab there. Got a really disturbing mental picture now." He shook his head, "Anyway, I've got to head now – people to see, joints to smoke, see you later." He waved as he somehow managed the feat of walking backwards and not bumping into anyone, something that would be impossible for me to attempt, all the while maintaining that cool aura that hung around him.

The rest of the day passed by at a monotonous pace as things went back to the way they had been before spring break: I sat through Mr Mason telling me everything I already knew about Wuthering Heights, I stared in befuddlement at the board in Trig, and I stood listlessly in the canteen as I waited for the unappetizing crap the School Board deemed edible.

Once we'd retrieved today's allotted portion of artery clogging greasiness, Angela and I made our way over to our usual table, with me sitting as far away from Mike and Jessica as possible. At the moment they were practically on top of each other, doing as much as they could without being reprimanded, and it wasn't a pretty sight. That, combined with the meatloaf, was enough to turn my stomach. I pushed the tray away and took a sip of water when I felt someone's eyes on me.

"Edward Cullen is staring at you again," Angela whispered. Crap. I really didn't want to deal with His Assholeness as well.

"Great. Probably looking for more ammo."

Angela's expression grew contemplative, "Maybe you should stop being so harsh on him."

"I'm not harsh. My behaviour is in direct correlation with his."

"Ok, so he's not the most talkative-"

I cut her off, "Ange, I've sat next to him for, on average, two hours a week for the past twelve months and he hasn't even acknowledged my existence."

"Well...if he was doing that then he wouldn't be staring at you...would he?" She had that twinkle in her eye that always appeared when she thought she was right.

"Not the point," she snickered into her lunch, "Anyway, I have no doubt that Jasper's telling him how pathetic I am right now."

Angela shook her head, "He's not there."

"Oh," I gathered my thoughts, "Then Cullen's probably staring at me because I frightened his BFF off."

She shook her head once more but chose not to press the point. My eyes were forcibly not looking towards The Volvo Owner, but that unfortunately meant that they landed, accidentally, on Mike and Jess. She immediately gave me one of her glare specials before turning back to Mike to make out. I shuddered. Lauren, a girl I'd never been friends with even when I'd been in with that crowd, sneered triumphantly. I was just about to pick up my tray and bid Angela a hasty farewell when I heard the sharp grating of the chair next to mine being dragged across the floor. I looked up in surprise, wondering who would be that brave and foolhardy to sit next to the rest of us.

It was a girl, who was probably a few inches shorter than me (I pitied her short female genes as well – she was sure to have an even worse crick in her neck) and who had her lunch tray grasped tightly in both hands. Poor her – she'd opted for the salad. Never opt for the salad, because whatever the canteen staff had put in it there was a high probability that none of it had ever seen a vegetable before let alone that it was one.

As usual, Angela took charge, "Hi."

"Hi," the nerves in her voice were clear for all to hear and I felt sorry for her for it – Lauren's eyes were already filling with excitement. "I'm Alice. I just transferred here from Mississippi." Huh. To her, Forks might actually be a thriving metropolis.

"I'm Angela," she offered Alice a small wave, which Alice gratefully received before curling up in her chair.

"I'm Bella." There didn't seem to be harm in introducing myself. After all, she was in pretty much the same predicament that I'd found myself in last year – minus the Charlie Swan build-up party. "I moved here too - 'bout a year ago from Phoenix."

"So is this your first day?" Angela asked, pointlessly. Alice nodded, prodding the greying lettuce with her fork. "Do you like it so far?" This time there was a shrug. Angela sent me a beseeching glare.

"What do you have next?" I tried.

She flicked open a piece of paper that I hadn't noticed before, then mumbled, "Gym." This, unfortunately, precipitated a giggle from Angela. "What?"

"I was just thinking, you're lucky Bella's not in your class. Wait – you are a Senior, right?"

"Yeah." I thought she was going to go silent again but after a few seconds she asked the question I'd been expecting, "Why am I lucky I'm not in Bella's class?"

"Bella's clumsy."

"I'm not that clumsy."

"You are. She falls down a lot," she confided in Alice, "And hits people on the back of the head with volleyballs." Alice's eyes were as wide as saucers, obviously wondering what exactly she'd gotten herself into by picking a seat beside us.

"It was an accident," I interjected quickly. "Besides, it was Mike."

"Who's Mike?"

I nodded my head in his direction, "Blonde, athletic, thinks he's God's gift."

"He's also in love with Bella," Angela commented. I glared at her.

"He is not!" She simply raised her eyebrows.

"Oh," Alice offered, popping a grape into her mouth, "I thought you had something going on with that guy over there who couldn't stop staring at you."

I swear Angela didn't stop laughing for a full five minutes.

A half hour and many corrections over my love life later, I waved goodbye to Angela and Alice and headed off to Biology, the class that was just held off the Bella's Most Hated top spot by History. As usual, Cullen was perched on the wooden stool beside mine, staring out the window towards the parking lot.

Must be checking on the Volvo, I mused.

The minute I plonked myself down beside him he shuffled his chair closer to the wall: to be fair to him (even though it was barely deserved) he at least tried to be discreet about it, inching further away from me every few seconds and barely scraping the tiled floor as he kept his head tilted towards the outside world.

Huh. I wondered if he'd miss ignoring me when we went our separate ways for college.

"Good afternoon, residents of Forks High!" Mr Banner cheered as he entered the classroom. I couldn't be sure, but I think Cullen groaned as he droned on at length about what he wanted us to do in class. 'Bonding' was mentioned – I could only hope it was in the context of science because the only other sort of bonding would consist of me trying very hard not to glance in the direction of my lab partner before he stormed out of the room under the pretext of needing to go to the school nurse. Again. Really, it'd happened the last time Mr Banner had suggested something similar: I'd been forced to spend a horrendous hour squashed between Mike and Tyler as they attempted to out-macho the other. Mike must have won because the next thing I knew he was asking me to Prom. It was really a very pleasant event in my life. Sadly, that was sarcasm. "Miss Swan?" I jerked my head up and looked at Mr Banner in panic. "Care to elaborate?"

I was screwed because my internal musings meant that I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. Hence, verbal diarrhoea kicked in, "Uh, what?" It was like I'd just coughed it up from the depths of High School Embarrassment: there were even muffled laughs. Oh, hello scarlet elephant, glad to see you're back.

"Miss Swan, I know that you studied this course back in Phoenix but that's no reason to be lax in this class! Where would we be if Einstein decided that he couldn't be bothered discovering the Theory of Relativity? Or if Edison hadn't invented the light-bulb because candles were readily available? Where would we be?" He ended urgently. Really, at that precise moment all I was thinking was that if Edison hadn't invented the light-bulb then around twenty people wouldn't be able to see how red I was then. "Where would we be?" He repeated, his voice dropping deep.

I shrugged. He sighed. Cullen had the nerve to laugh.

Jerk.

Fortunately, Mr Banner moved on (although not without reluctance) and spent the rest of the lesson writing notes on the board. Huh. Apparently, he actually had been referring to 'bonding' in the scientific sense. Shock.

Unfortunately, this gave me plenty of time to be hyper-aware of the person sitting next to me because him continuing to ignore me meant that I was continuing to pay more attention to him than was normal. I felt him lean towards me a couple of times and once, after two or three possible moving closer attempts, I turned around to face him.

He was looking at me.

And, damn, he had the most sparkling green eyes I'd ever seen.

He kept looking at me, staring at me, and there was one thing I was certain of – Edward Cullen was certainly not glaring at me this time. I breathed deep, counting in my head, trying to distract myself from his piercing gaze.

One.

Two.

Yep, he was staring.

Three.

Four.

Still staring.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

Definitely staring.

Eight.

Nine.

Oh God – his lips just twitched. Is he...is he smiling at me? Or is that a smirk?

Ten.

It's a smile.

Eleven.

Crap.

Twelve.

Look away now Bella, NOW.

Thirteen.

Fourteen.

But his eyes really are...something.

Fifteen.

Sixteen.

Is he...? Wait, is he opening his mouth?

Holy Crap! Is he going to speak? To me? To Bella, the 'Heap of Crap' owning car driver?

Seventeen.

He leaned closer.

Eighteen.

Closer.

Nineteen.

"Class dismissed!"

What. The. Hell?

I broke the stare Cullen and I had going on to look at Mr Banner in disbelief, checking the clock to make sure that it really was time to go. I went to turn back to Cullen, hoping that he'd come to the decision to finally say something to me, but he was rapidly stuffing his things in his bag, obviously avoiding me again.

As he swept past me, his left arm unintentionally brushed against my back and I jumped at the sensation it caused within me.

Sitting at the desk while the others slowly packed up, I came to the conclusion that the only reason his touch had felt like that was because I was in shock.

Yep. Deep, deep shock.

Definitely.

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A/N: Thank you to everyone who's reading this story, reviewing it, adding it to their alerts and listing it as a favourite. It really means a lot.

So...we have Alice, Jasper, Rosalie and Edward...sort of, silently. Just about. And Bella...I mean, she's in shock isn't she? Or is Denial a river in Egypt?

As usual, there's a link to the song the chapter title takes it's name from on my profile.

P.S. Reviews = good. Edward might even talk...


	3. Chapter 3: Pure Morning

A/N 1: Just beware, this chapter's written in Jasper's point of view which means that although there's a lot more Edward, there's also a lot more that merits the 'M' rating.

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**Chapter Three: Pure Morning**

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_JPOV_

Mornings are shit.

I'm not really a morning kind of guy, to be honest, mostly because not only do they mark the start of another fucking day spent sharing classes with the morons at Forks fucking High, but also because the chances of me scoring anything are pretty much sitting at zero.

Plus, the hammers in my head seem to think that it's the perfect time to start work, meaning that my cousin's sixty phone calls before 8am are even more unbearable than usual.

"Yes Rosalie, I'm alive."

"Yes Rosalie, I'm not in jail."

"Yes Rosalie, I still don't give a shit about that."

That's our daily routine: for every call or text I reply to, there's at least twenty that are unreturned or just completely ignored. I've often entertained thoughts that someday I'm just going to flush my phone down the toilet, pack up and ride Desdemona to the opposite end of the country just to piss her off. Got to admit, it's an attractive possibility.

The irritating beeping coming from the drawer beside my bed lets me know that Little Miss Student Body President must have done her yoga or Pilates or whatever new crap she's into now and is now probably sitting nibbling that shitty health food in her fancy-ass kitchen pressing redial on my number.

"What?"

"Well that's a lovely way to greet family," she remarks snidely.

"Trust me, it could've been a lot worse," I warn, shoving the covers off me and hobbling towards the bathroom in search of painkillers.

"It could have been a lot better too, Jasper." Really, her voice just cuts right through me ninety nine percent of the time, let alone when I have a hangover.

"Well, now that you're sure I'm not dead or in prison, would you do me a favour and hang up?"

"No."

I roll my eyes, reaching for the tumbler that sits beside the sink and filling it with water. "What've I done now? Finally told good ol' Royce how much of a self-righteous bastard he is?"

"Don't be ridiculous, you weren't even over here last night."

"Small mercies," I mumbled, popping the pill into my mouth and swallowing it down.

"What did you say?" Came the shriek down the other end of the line.

"Nothing."

"And Royce is not a self-righteous you-know-what." I ignored her, knowing from experience that if I went on like this then the call would last, on average, ten minutes longer. "That's not the point. You haven't done anything." Well, stone me with roses. "But your girlfriend has."

"Uh huh?"

"Jasper, are you listening to me?"

"Uh huh."

"She's been telling the whole school that I'm having Edward Cullen's love-child, amongst other things," she screeched. "Jasper, are you...laughing?"

"Nope," I said quickly, toning down the sniggers but allowing the grin to remain.

"This is not funny!" There was a small crash behind her. "Everyone thinks I've had sex with him: it's awful."

"'Doubt Edward's too happy either."

"Oh I couldn't give a flying rat's behind if his moody ass gets all worked up about this, what about me?"

Deciding that this conversation was going to end up Rosalie-centric, I pressed the 'End Call' button and threw the phone out onto the bed. It took it precisely ten seconds to beep again. Well, good luck to her because I'd be damned if I was going to answer it.

It took me little over ten minutes to reach the mental institution so fondly referred to as a high school. I left Desdemona in the parking lot, shooting a glare at Tyler Crowley who had almost maimed her a few months ago: he would have got a sound punch in the face had Edward not held me back. Speaking of, I spotted The Moody Bastard holed up in his daddy-mobile – no doubt listening to that classical crap he hid under his seat.

Freak: he had every window rolled up tight even though Forks was having one of its once in a blue moon warm days. Even I'd ditched my usual sweater for something with more than a passing resemblance to cotton.

Banging on the driver's window, I pushed my bag onto his roof and waited for him to wise the fuck up. The lights that flashed up when he unlocked the car told me that he had.

"So, I hear you've knocked up my cousin?" I asked when I got in the passenger's side: Edward didn't do sitting in the open air.

He just looked at me blankly. "What?"

"You know, you and Rosalie...doing the dirty deed? I mean, was it good?"

He recoiled, rapping his fingers along the steering wheel, "That is disgusting. She's your cousin."

"Hey, I'm curious. Besides, it's not like I'm going to walk up to Royce and ask him about their sex life." I shuddered – if there was one thing I didn't need to see, hear or imagine, it was Royce King, douche-bag extraordinaire, in flagrante. "I wonder if she's still got a stick up her ass in the bedroom."

"She will have if Royce has anything to do with it," Edward sniggered beside me and I gave him a whack.

"Dude, that's revolting! She's my cousin!"

"You asked."

"Unintentionally." My nose scrunched up, "That's just...I think I need to go bleach my brain now."

"Better your brain than your hair."

"Fuck off," I replied, opening up the car door to let some air in. "Anyway, I'm all natural. Ask Maria."

"Lovely," he grimaced. "So who's saying the she-devil and I...you know..."

"Can you honestly not say 'sex'? Come on, man, S-E-X – three letters, it's not hard. Unless you want it to be." He just gave me the bird. "Maria," I sighed.

"She's still bitter that she lost the election then?"

"Bitter? No, bitter would be an understatement. Spitting nails furious is more like it." Reaching into my jacket pocket, I pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lit one. Edward stared at me in disgust.

"Can you not do that in my car? Not all of us want lung cancer."

"It's out the door," I said, waving the cigarette into the open air in an effort to disperse some of the smoke. "See?"

"Idiot," he mumbled, then louder, "I think that weed's affecting your brain power."

"I don't do that shit anymore."

"Since when?"

I shrugged, "Since now."

He took a few moments, then replied in that condescending voice he occasionally chose to adopt (I'd nicknamed it Carlisle Squared), "My dad has some leaflets on that sort of thing. It's going to be exceedingly difficult."

"No shit," I drawled, sarcasm heavy in my voice. I hated it when The Moody Bastard felt the need to try and impose his perceived moral and intellectual advantage on me.

"You shouldn't swear. It's impolite. Crass."

"Get off your fucking high horse, Edward." I had to admit, the lack of a controlled substance throttling through my veins was making me more grouchy than usual. Fortunately, Edward was as used to my moods as I was to his and left me in peace.

We sat like that, with me taking discreet puffs of my cigarette inside the car and Edward frowning each time but saying nothing, until a loud bang rang across the parking lot. I chuckled: should be interesting.

"You know, Bella Swan's an okay sort of girl," I remarked, pointing in the general direction of her truck which was billowing smoke.

"Uh huh."

Yeah, play it cool my friend. You're not fooling anyone.

"I sat beside her in Morris' class yesterday. She didn't fall asleep: kudos."

It took him a while, but he finally got a clue, "What?"

"What what?"

"What were you doing sitting beside her?"

I grinned, "Taking advantage of Vera's complete inability to get any form of birth control, and seizing the opportunity to admire a pretty face up close."

He had his 'having a coronary' look on again, "Don't."

"Why? I thought you'd popped her cherry?" The expression on his face would more than make up for the shit that would surely follow. "Such a dirty mind, Edward. I was talking about her sitting next to someone cherry – although I'm sure you'd tap that if given a choice."

"You're a pig."

"You know you love it."

School passed by in a boredom induced daze. I didn't have any classes with The Moody Bastard or his Virgin Bride, and I was left to cope with Rosalie on my own. Let's just say there was a very good and entirely justified reason why I no longer lived with her.

"Jasper," she nagged. Really, she had a voice like nails against a blackboard.

"What?"

"Sort your girlfriend out."

"Nope," I popped the 'p'.

She whacked me on the arm, "Sort her out now."

"Yeah, and how's that going to go down exactly?"

"I don't care," she hissed, drawing the attention of a few people seated around us. I didn't blame them: as bad as Rosalie's freak-outs were, paying attention in Mason's English class was far worse. God, were all of the teachers at this school dip-shits? With the obvious exception of Morris of course – the man, the legend. "Have you heard everything she's saying about me?"

"That you and Edward got up close and personal? Big deal, everyone knows you'd strangle each other given half the chance." That, I'd pay to see. I bet Rosalie would kick his angsty ass.

"That's not the worst."

I glanced at her, deadpanned, "Are you sleeping with Mason too?" I had to dodge the pen she threw at me.

"No. Worse."

"Worse than the man who may not have taken a shower since the last millennium?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"The Principal."

"What?"

"The Principal," she whispered a little louder.

"I'm sorry, cousin, I didn't hear you there," I teased.

"You did Jasper Whitlock, and if you don't get your head out of your self-conceited ass and act the way family's meant to, I'll make sure poor little Maria won't be able to ride your disco-stick any time soon."

I would have laughed had I not known she was deadly serious. I supposed I was being charitable, dropping the subject. After all, a sexually frustrated Maria was even more of a bitch than usual: she really did love Big Jim and the Twins. Possibly more than I did.

"Mr Whitlock, Miss Hale, is there a problem?" For a second I contemplated telling him that everyone thought Rosalie was giving the Principal BJs in her free time, but her threats were too troubling for me to actually do anything.

Rosalie, however, took on her role as Little Miss Student Body President, an act she'd come to perfect over the past few months, "I was just helping my cousin analyse one of the passages," she lowered her voice slightly, even though it was obvious everyone could still hear her, "He's having a bit of trouble, you see."

Sympathy, thy name is Rosalie Hale.

Two faced bitch more like it.

"What the fuck?" I mouthed.

She just smirked and straightened up in her chair. "Maria," she mouthed back.

I didn't make it to lunch. Maria had a more pressing matter.

The pressing matter was currently slap-bang against her thigh as we leaned against the back wall of the gym.

"Uh," I moaned, lifting her slightly, as her tongue delved into my mouth. Fuck, she was good. "Oh wait..."

"No," she gasped, switching her attention to my neck. "I want you now."

Normally I wouldn't have had any complaints, but I was still concerned about my 'gentleman's area'. "No, Rosalie wants me to tell you-"

"Rosalie's a frigid whore." Hello, oxymoron police?

"Well, yeah, but she's also as irritating as fuck, so if you could just lay off the rumours..."

"What's in it for me?" I pulled her closer to me, bringing her body full against mine. "Tempting," she said as she flicked her tongue against my throat once more. "But no."

"Maria-"

"Shut up and fuck me."

Yeah, so Big Jim and the Twins had a mind entirely divorced from my own.

She began to unzip my trousers, slowly, seductively: Maria loved to tease, to be in control – and I wasn't about to complain 'cos I got quite a good deal out of it in return. She freed me from my boxers and began adjusting herself. The anticipation was fucking first class.

Just as she was about to, to quote Rosalie, 'ride my disco-stick', I heard a muffled gasp in the background. Doing a quick inventory of possible cock-blockers, I ruled out teachers (they'd just yell 'detention'), my friends (Edward would be preaching about the danger of STIs) and hers (to be honest, they'd just egg us on). The only other candidate could be The Virgin Bride herself. Man, Edward was going to murder me for muddying her pure, innocent eyes. Could be fun.

Turning round, still less than fully clothed, I began to smirk at the intruder. Maria went for a more direct course of action.

"Fuck the hell off, bitch. Can't you see me and my guy are having some private time?"

It was a girl who'd caught us, a girl that wasn't Bella, and she was edging slowly backwards, so slowly that it was hard to tell if she was moving.

"S-Sorry."

Alice?

Shit.

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A/N 2: So...that's Jasper. Interesting character. But what's he done? And just how does he know Alice?

A lot of Placebo, Muse, Nine Inch Nails, and My Chemical Romance (Jasper would be mortified) were playing when I wrote this chapter. See my profile for the link to 'Pure Morning' by Placebo (the title).

Remember, reviews are better than winding The Moody Bastard up.


	4. Chapter 4: Girls and Boys

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**Chapter Four: Girls and Boys**

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I've got to say, my week was improving at such a drastic rate that by Tuesday afternoon the events of the day before had all but been forgotten about. I'd had no more run-ins with Jasper (fortunately) or Cullen (who I'd decided must have been really pissed off at whatever I'd done to offend him that he'd even considered speaking to me) and was able to put Staring-Gate so far behind me that it may well have reached Russia. Angela and I were going to Port Angeles ostensibly to shop for prom dresses but in reality we'd planned nothing more than going to a half-decent coffee shop to pig out on triple chocolate brownies and cinnamon lattes (mmm...Christmas-y) before driving back to the Reservation to hang out with Jacob. I didn't like the look on Angela's face when I told her about that last little arrangement: seeing as I'd just managed to dispel any unscrupulous thoughts she might be entertaining regarding Cullen and me, I didn't really fancy having to deal with her sudden shipping of me and Jacob.

Thanks to the miracle of free periods, I had no class and was hanging around the parking lot waiting for her (she had Mason, and therefore my pity), taking the rare opportunity to enjoy the cloud-free Forks sky and unobstructed watery sun. The place was pretty much abandoned, the rest of the student body either walled up inside the school or else already on their way to First Beach. Really, I didn't understand how people got so excited when the Pacific Northwest decided it was a good time to stop raining, especially when it wasn't exactly heat-wave weather. It must work on the same logic as the admiration for Cullen's Volvo: maybe the clouds had addled their brains.

Just as I was contemplating moving towards a bench on the grassy area (it'd taken a lot for me to stop calling it a grassy knoll) in front of the science building, a small figure came tumbling out of the shadows of the gym and hurtling towards me.

"Alice?" I asked as she came closer. Something was wrong, something must have happened because even I, unobservant as I was, realised that the expression on her face was anything but ordinary. "Alice, are you okay?"

She glanced up at me, stricken, and shook her head furiously before launching herself at me. To say I was surprised was an understatement: I didn't hug, I wasn't a hugger but it seemed that Alice was. "Oh Bella!"

Alright, I could get through this. Really, I could. It was all in the mind. All I had to do was pretend Alice was Renee. Simple.

Or not, because as overly expressive as my mother was, she usually took any emotional upheaval out on the furniture.

"There, there," I muttered, patting her lightly on the back all the while wondering if I'd jumped into some sort of portal that had transformed me into Isabella Marie Walton.

"Bella, he-" The rest was inaudible: she'd flung her head into my shoulder, leaving me with one completely redundant thought – at least I'd put on deodorant that morning. At the same time, though, I was thinking how it was possible for Alice to get so worked up about something when she hadn't even been at Forks High for two days. Maybe she was highly strung.

Something moved to my left, catching the corner of my eye, and I tried to manoeuvre Alice to a position where I could see what it was.

And the heavens opened, and all became clear.

Jasper and his scary-ass girlfriend Maria emerged from behind the gym in a rather rumpled state. Huh – poor Alice. It was a general rule of thumb not to go near the backs of empty buildings when the weather was nice and the classrooms empty.

Jasper glanced over at us: I couldn't make out the look on his face but I was willing to guess pride was pretty prevalent.

"Alice," I started, trying to unfasten her from my body, "Did you see something...not PG-13?" She nodded again. "Don't worry, they do it all the time." I'd thought my words would go some way to soothe her, letting her know that she wasn't the first and wouldn't be the last to catch a glimpse of the two of them...enjoying each other's company, but it had the opposite effect. I think there might have been tears.

Maybe she was a Mormon, I mean, I suppose Mississippi was sort of sheltered. But, hang on, wasn't that Utah?

"But I don't understand...how...it's so gross."

Oh, I miss the nineties.

"I know, but that's Jasper and Maria. They're very expressive." Bella, thou art the queen of the understatement.

It took her several minutes but she eventually got to the point where she could stand without making me feel like the rock to her limpet. "Maria?"

"Yeah."

"That's a really pretty name," she sniffed. "She's really pretty."

Pretty wasn't a word I would have used to describe Maria: gorgeous, sultry man-eater yes, pretty no, but I wasn't going to tell Alice that for fear of inciting another wave of tears.

"You think she's pretty, you should see Rosalie Hale," Off her questioning look I explained, "Jasper's cousin."

"Oh." She nodded and took a big sniff. I did a quick inventory of my pockets: there had to be a tissue somewhere. And yet, there wasn't. Brilliant.

"Yeah." The conversation was getting stale and I had no real clue how to proceed without sounding like the complete idiot and social outcast that I was, so I grasped the next thought that floated into my head with both hands. "Hey, Angela and I are going to drive out to Port Angeles after school – do you want to come?"

"Port Angeles?"

"Yep."

"Does it have a Starbucks?"

"Nope." Capitalism hadn't really hit this side of the Pacific Northwest yet.

"Good."

In the time it took for Angela to finish her class and meet us in the parking lot, I'd heard what I assumed to be Alice's entire life history but I still had no idea why she'd decided to move to Forks. I mean, if I had the world at my feet, and the freedom to go where I pleased, I'd be out of here in a shot. Her answer was the same every time I asked. "Oh, just fancied a change."

To my mind, New York was a change, LA was a change, Chicago was a change, Forks was just regression.

"Oh, look Bella, there's that guy." She pointed one of her tiny hands in the general direction of the entrance to school.

"What guy?"

Was it too much to wish that she meant Mike Newton? I'd even take another bout of hysterics over Jasper so long as when I turned round my suspicions would prove to be completely incorrect.

"The guy that was staring at you earlier on."

Hello pin, meet balloon. Hope you're happy together.

"Is he staring now?" Did I care?

"No."

Clearly, I didn't. After all, Cullen = asshole.

"Good."

"He's nice looking."

"And?"

"Nothing." She was trying to be coy. "Just, you know..."

"Uh huh. And no," I emphasised with a shake of my head.

She moaned and began to do this scary bouncing thing last seen in some sort of lame-ass horror film. "Oh come on Bella, he's hot, he can't stop looking at you-"

"He can. He's not looking at me now," I pointed out, waving to Angela as she approached. "You've cheered up, by the way."

"Don't try to change the subject."

I called Angela's name, deciding that the best way to deal with Alice was to ignore her.

"Hey," she looked at Alice inquisitively and then back at me.

"Alice had a run in with Jasper and Maria." Angela was immediately sympathetic. "I said she could come with us this afternoon."

"Great! Alice, how do you feel about shopping?"

Turns out that Alice didn't have much of an opinion on shopping and even if she had she didn't have the money to spend, so we ended up bypassing the mall and spending the rest of the afternoon in the coffee house down the block. Alice immediately went for anything and everything that remotely hinted at having chocolate in it so that, by the time she had paid, I was musing on how exactly she managed to stay that thin if this was her usual diet.

"Um...that's a lot of chocolate," Angela started, glancing at me warily. I just shrugged.

"Chocolate's good," Alice answered.

"Yeah but..."

"I just saw a guy's you-know-what for the first time while he was about to...do that thing...with his girlfriend. I think I'm entitled."

"Alright." Neither of us were brave enough to give further voice to what we were thinking so we dropped the topic. Unfortunately, this led Alice's mind to even more nefarious plans.

"Angela, I think we've got a mission."

"We do?"

"Yes: Get Bella a boyfriend. Now, I was going to go for the Hot Staring Guy."

"Hot Staring Guy?"

"Cullen." I offered, begrudgingly.

"Good plan."

"Angela!" I exclaimed. Alice's Plan 1: Angela's sense of loyalty 0.

She ignored me, "But I don't know, Edward Cullen could be too much work to take on. I mean, they haven't even spoken yet."

Alice turned to me so quickly that she sprayed me with crumbs from the muffin she held in her hand, "What? How is that possible?"

"That's not the worst of it. They've sat beside each other for a full year."

Et tu, Angela?

"Bella!"

"What?"

It seemed I'd actually shocked Alice into speechlessness because she sat there for a while looking like the proverbial goldfish in a bowl. I figured, however, that this wasn't a good thing as the chances of an explosion a few moments later increased exponentially.

And I was right.

Most of what she said went in one ear and out the other, a habit I guessed my genes had picked up from Charlie, but I could discern the main points: I was stubborn, I should pluck up the courage and talk to him, I wasn't going to ever get a boyfriend if I carried on this way et cetera, et cetera.

"You're missing the obvious here: he hasn't talked to me either. Anyway, I said hello to him on the first day and he just completely blanked me."

"Bella holds grudges," Angela piped in.

"I do not hold grudges."

"Then what are you doing with Edward?"

"...Holding a grudge..." I stammered. Note to self, never attempt to out-argue the Vice-Captain of the Debate Team. Colossally bad idea. "Anyway, I'm not interested in Cullen. End of story."

Alice seemed mollified – yay, but Angela was still tapping on the side of her cup. This was not good. Angela was never one to go all 'Pinky And The Brain' on me, but, when pushed, her schemes were up there with the best of them. "But then there's Jacob."

Alice's Plan 2: Angela's sense of loyalty 0.

I'm pretty sure Alice squeaked. At any rate, the bounce had started again. "Jacob?"

"He's one of my best friends, please don't go there."

"That's no excuse," Alice said, a triumphant look on her face, "He could be your Gilbert."

"My what?"

"You know, from Anne of Green Gables."

"Yeah right."

"Bella, don't be such a cynic."

"I'm not a cynic."

"You are," Alice took another bite of the muffin, "And you're just closing yourself off from love."

Hmm...how to get out of this situation?

Retaliate.

"Alice, you don't even have a boyfriend yourself so I don't see the need for you to interfere in my love life."

It was like kicking a puppy and I felt like complete crap afterwards because the tears from earlier began to well in her eyes again.

"I know. It's just...You've been so nice to me and I just wanted to do something nice for you too, especially after what happened this afternoon." Her voice was weak and remorse darted through me with every word she spoke.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-" I trailed off, doing that awkward arm rubbing thing that, along with patting someone's back, was one of the only weapons in my comfort arsenal. "I'm socially challenged." She smiled a small smile.

"I picked up on that."

Next step, offer the olive branch.

"So yeah, do you want to come over to La Push tonight? Jacob's having a barbeque on the beach there."

It was almost freakish the alacrity with which she perked up, "I can meet him? Hell yes!"

Great.

Big hole, this is me.

* * *

**A/N: Right, I realise this chapter was a little thin on actual action but in reality it's the first part of the next chapter...the second part, I promise, will contain Jacob and Edward. And, very possibly, words between our leads.**

**The song used in the title is by Blur, all rights belong to them: please see my profile for the link to the video...it's brilliant.**

**Once again, thanks to everyone reading this story but it'd be even better if people could review.**

**Remember, reviews are better than Alice and Angela's nefarious plotting.**


	5. Issues: Interlude 1

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**Issues: Interlude 1**

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Jacob's barbeque was rather less busy than I had imagined it would be, seeing as I guessed the usual motley crew would be there, yet when we got there Jake was the sole inhabitant of the beach. Plus, it appeared to be more like a picnic than a barbeque, with a check blanket and everything.

I studiously ignored Angela's smirk, Alice's freaky bounce and the misplaced hope in Jake's eyes: maybe he'd been on the whiskey again. Please let him be on the whiskey again, I silently begged.

"Hey Bells!" He greeted after a pregnant pause, his eyes moving past me towards the other two. "Angela, girl I don't know."

"It's Alice." She sounded too cheery for my own good. Ignore, ignore. Jacob merely waved us over before turning back to the small bonfire he had going on the sand.

"Bella," Angela hissed into my ear as she grasped my arm, "Did he know there'd be more than just you at this shindig?"

I thought back, "Well, I said you might come."

"Might?"

"Yeah."

"Element of doubt?"

"Uh huh."

Angela nodded, "I think this is a date."

I swung round, almost bringing us crashing to the ground. As it was, Alice stumbled into the back of us, "Crap."

I paid no heed: what Angela had just said was way more important, "What?"

"Bella...blanket, picnic basket, bonfire..."

"It's cold," I explained, "And you know how much Jake eats."

She just shot me a look, "Who are you trying to convince?"

"You cannot be-"

"Bells!" Jake yelled, interrupting my mini meltdown. "Get your pretty little ass over here before the dip actually does expire."

Yeah, I didn't need Angela to pass judgement on that remark either. Ok, may have misjudged the situation slightly, but no harm no foul. Right?

Oh crap, who was I kidding? This was a one-way ticket to Awkward-Ville, population: Bella.

Turns out the evening was every bit as awkward as I had expected it to be, and the addition of Jacob's arm around my side didn't help things much either. Saying that, neither did Alice's completely unsubtle leanings of the head. I wonder if that was Mississippi code for 'Go Make Out With Him' or just the usual teenage girl variety. Whatever it was, I claimed ignorance.

That's it Bella, nothing matters, everything's straightforward, Jake's just concerned that you'll get pneumonia...even though there's a fire, and it's practically summer... Shut up, mind. You'll get yourself in trouble someday.

He was toasting marshmallows over the bonfire when his mouth decided to open and reveal information that, although embarrassing, wasn't related to him. Sweet Mercy!

"So, have you had any trouble with Cullen?"

I heard a vague choking sound in the background, but my mortification made it too hard to figure out what it was from.

"Cullen?"

Jake looked at me like I'd grown another head, "Yeah, you know, the guy you've complained to me about basically every day since you came here."

Oh, that Cullen. How could I have forgotten?

"Not really." Maybe if I looked at my plate and not at anyone else then they'd believe me and, more importantly, leave me alone.

"He keeps staring at Bella," Alice blurted out.

Thank you, and good night. My life as I know it is Over. Capital O.

"He what?"

You know that feeling you get when it seems your stomach's just dropped somewhere in the region of your little toes? Yeah, that was me.

"It's nothing Jake."

"You never mentioned staring before."

"He never stared before."

Liar.

"Really?"

"Mmm." As soon as he glanced away, I glared at Alice who shrugged apologetically back at me.

"What about that guy with the bike?"

"Jasper?"

"Yeah."

"He's got a girlfriend. No staring involved - at all." The briefest hint of a smile flickered across his face before the flames once more swallowed it up and replaced it with a frown. "Anyway, Alice caught him and his girlfriend getting cosy behind the gym."

This time there was a smile, and a laugh, "Good on him, man."

I was pretty sure the looks on Angela and Alice's faces mirrored mine, "Yeah, if you don't mind catching syphilis."

"Jasper hasn't got syphilis!" Alice spluttered, then added hastily, shoving a forkful of cake in her mouth, "He doesn't seem the type."

Were we talking about the same Jasper? The guy she'd met for the first time having sex in a public place? Oh God, please tell me she hasn't managed to develop a crush in the space of four hours. Please.

"Hey Jake, pass me that smore."

I figured if ignorance failed, I could always fall back on calories.


	6. Chapter 5: You Spin Me Round

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**Chapter Five: You Spin Me Round**

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"So Bella, I hear you're going on a date with The Moody Bastard."

I jerked my head up from the table it had been resting on since Mr Morris had hurriedly left the room on some unknown errand, his coat-tails flapping at his back and his patent shoes screeching on the linoleum floor, and stared at Jasper, my table-mate in History for the past few weeks, in confusion.

"Huh?"

Oh, way to go Bella. Such eloquence. So impressive.

His eyes crinkled in amusement, "Edward."

Before mortification had time to set in, I couldn't help but think that Jasper's nickname for his friend was spot-on accurate.

And then mortification set in and all I could think was crap.

"Wha-? Who...I mean what... what are you talking about?"

He erupted with a bellow of laughter so loud that I was left with only two thoughts. One: surely the rest of the class had heard that and were now actively noticing my acute embarrassment, and two: where the hell had he gotten that piece of information from?

"You're so cute when you blush like that, you know."

Fortunately I had enough presence of mind to formulate something that vaguely resembled a come-back, or at least something that, in my desperation, I was chomping at the bit to chalk up as one. "Aren't you worried what Maria would say about that? I hear she's the jealous type."

I imagined that if Jasper had had a cigarette handy he would now be taking a slow drag from it because he just replied coolly, "Maria knows I don't do cute." He spat the last word out as if it was offensive to him. It probably was, after all I presumed 'cute' went with 'virgin' which was the complete opposite of 'whore' which Jasper, admittedly, was.

"What do you do then?" I asked, ignoring my own curiosity about what he had said earlier in an attempt for him to forget about it too. It seemed to work too, for a while.

"Experienced, erotic, sultry. That's what I do." If I hadn't been one hundred percent convinced that I was not attracted to the hat-wearing, chain-smoking, bad-living guy sitting beside me, I'd be putty in his hands. How could he make words sound so sexy? "Don't you love the word 'sultry'? Does exactly what it says on the tin." I didn't need his laugh to tell me that I was blushing again. "Maybe you wouldn't. You are The Virgin Bride."

I'm sorry. Had I crossed into some sort of parallel bizarro-world where absolutely nothing made sense?

"Whatever," I muttered, flicking a piece of stray hair behind my ear.

"I see what you're doing."

"What am I doing?"

"Trying to make me forget what I asked you about Edward."

"I'm not."

"Yes you are."

"No, I'm not. And it's complete crap as well."

Of course, Jasper pounced on this, "So he didn't ask you out?"

I shook my head furiously, "No. Why would he?"

"No reason," Jasper murmured, turning the page of the textbook that sat in front of him. "So," he began distantly, "How's your little friend settling in?"

Confused at the sudden subject change, I asked, "Who?"

"You know, the small girl."

"What? Alice?"

"Yeah."

I tried to process this new development and decided to fall back on something resembling flippancy. "She's still trying to get over catching you and Maria behind the Gym. I think you've traumatised her."

"Oh," he answered, turning over another page so quickly that I wondered if he'd actually read the previous one. "Tell her I'm sorry. She seems like a sweet girl."

"Sweet? You mean cute?"

"No, I mean sweet. That's different from cute."

Before I had time to ask him what on earth he was saying, Mr Morris hurried back into the room as quickly as he had left it and, with only a brief apology, started into his teaching again. I was still staring at Jasper but he'd turned back to the front and was avidly writing down whatever nonsense Morris was now spouting.

"I am not going on a date with Edward Cullen."

Alice and Angela whipped their heads up from the contraband trashy gossip magazine Alice had smuggled into school and stared at me in annoyance. Before they could restart the emotional blackmail that had been present in basically every conversation we had had in the past few week, I continued, "He's arrogant and a jerk and-"

"And he stares, Bella."

"Probably because my hair's a mess and my clothes are too Target for him and he's just annoyed I exist," I replied, taking a chunk out of the apple I'd remembered to shove in my bag this morning.

Alice exchanged a look with her new-found partner in crime before turning to face me and letting out a loud sigh, "You have some serious self-image problems but that's not the issue." Her bottle of water almost toppled as she leant over the table, "Guys don't stare at girls like that because they don't like what they're wearing. Guys don't notice what girls wear."

"Unless it's something, you know, you know," Angela interrupted and the piece of apple I'd been eating very nearly got stuck in my throat as I laughed at the pretty much ridiculous scenario that was unfolding in front of me.

"Exactly! Guys like girls with confidence!" Alice spluttered. "They like girls like Maria."

"Alice, I hate to break your little bubble of innocence but guys don't go for 'girls like Maria' because of their confidence."

Angela nodded along in agreement with me. "Yeah, it's more because of what they can do behind the Gym."

A cloud momentarily passed over Alice's face but it was only a few seconds before she was back to the perky little thing she'd been before. "Not the point, Bella. Confidence," she emphasised, "is key."

"Says who?"

"Cosmo," Angela and Alice responded in tandem. I rolled my eyes and took another bite out of the apple.

"That magazine's a load of trash. Unless, of course, you're encouraging me to perfect my fellatio skills." I remarked tetchily.

This time Alice's bottle of water did fall over but it was more because of the force with which she rocked back into her chair than of any excited leaning. "What did you say?" I had to smother a grin because the expression on her face mirrored that of Charlie's when Renee had told him to go over the birds and the bees talk with me last summer. It was, in fact, the reaction I'd been looking for.

"Exactly!" I replied, mimicking her words from earlier. "There's no point telling me to act like I'm this uber-hot person when the most sexual thing you've ever been involved in was watching 'Eyes Wide Shut' last week – and that freaked you out." I knew it was a low blow but the Cullen-related teasing had gotten old about five minutes after they'd started it three weeks ago.

"Bella," Angela warned, her eyes darting from Alice to me and back again. Alice was taking small breaths and resolutely not looking at me while she was doing it. I wondered, with a pang of remorse and a flicker of discomfort, if she was going to cry.

She didn't. It seemed that Forks High had toughened her up because after a few moments she glanced up at me and sent a watery smile my way. "I just want you to be happy."

"I am. I'm ecstatic in my own little world where Cullen's most definitely on the periphery."

"Bella, he stares."

"And?"

"He stares at you all the time."

"Maybe we should just drop the subject. Hey, Alice, did you see that picture of Brad Pitt? He really needs to lose the beard." Angela remarked, attempting to calm the situation.

"Talk to him, make the first move. Maybe he's just shy."

"I allowed for shy for about a month last year. Now I'm just settling for asshole. Or Moody Bastard."

"What?"

I dumped the apple into a plastic bag and tied a knot in it, ignoring Alice completely, "Besides, he hangs out with Jasper. He's definitely not shy."

A hush fell over our end of the table and for a short while all I could hear were the moans and grumblings of Jessica as she waxed lyrical about how crap her life was. Great. I'll trade you mine.

It was, inevitably, Angela who broke the silence, "Maybe they're gay. They hang out a lot and I could see the whole Brokeback thing working for them."

"And Jasper does have an awful lot of plaid in his wardrobe," I sniggered before my laughter escaped completely. Soon even Alice's little tinkle of a giggle rang out.

I caught her eye and, for a moment, I hoped she'd forgiven me. Then I remembered what Jasper had said earlier on. "Oh, Jasper says sorry." Angela and Alice looked visibly befuddled so I expanded, "For subjecting Alice to the Jasper and Maria Sexcapades."

"That's nice of him," Angela frowned. I understood the subtext: Jasper never apologised.

"Yeah."

We pondered that for a few moments before Angela finished up with her sandwich. "I wonder if he can really do that with his tongue."

"Me too."

I may have been inexperienced but I had a good idea of what she was referring to. Alice, however, appeared to have none. What a sheltered life she must have led in the back of beyond.

"What? What can he do with his tongue?"

Angela and I glanced at each other in slight panic because, although we were not above thinking such things, actually speaking them was pretty much taboo. "Well..." I trailed off, eyes beseeching Angela for support.

"I heard he can tie a knot in a cherry stalk with his tongue," Angela filled in hastily and, in my opinion, unconvincingly. Fortunately, Alice didn't catch the crap explanation or quite obvious movie scenario.

"Oh."

I'd been wrong a couple of weeks ago. Clearly 'Eyes Wide Shut' had not been a watershed moment.

I didn't so much walk to Biology as trudge to it. I never looked forward to it at the best of times, but I was in a particularly black mood today because of the nefarious, and highly false, rumour Jasper had alerted me to earlier on. I couldn't think that Cullen would take too well to his coolness being linked to me in any form, however unfounded. I groaned and hoped that maybe, despite a highly impressive attendance track-record, he'd be off sick today. Or at least temporarily deaf.

I had no such luck. There he was at our lab table, one arm leaning on the surface and the other holding a book in place. God, he was something.

Shuffling to my seat, I stumbled on the strap of someone's bag and, anticipating imminent contact with the earth, closed my eyes tightly.

Just then a pair of arms stopped my fall. I kept my eyes closed a while longer, expecting my saviour to be at best the guy I sat behind who spent every lesson eying up Lauren and at worst Mike 'I have no personal space boundaries' Newton.

Oh, my expectations were completely shot out of the water.

Propping me up, making sure I was actually steady on my feet, was Cullen himself. I couldn't process anything besides the fact that he was touching me, that he was holding me up and that I would give anything for him to keep doing that.

Things were looking up for Biology.

Then I cringed and grew warm from the scarlet blush that stampeded across my face. I'd very nearly fallen on my face in front of him. God, he must think that I'm a complete idiot.

Crap.

A stony expression was etched on his handsome face.

Double crap.

He began to frown at me.

Three strikes. You're out.

"Th-thank you," I spluttered, as he removed his hands from my body. God, he had good hair.

I don't know if I expected him to speak but the disappointment that welled up within me when he merely nodded sharply and turned back to the desk was nevertheless there. Stupid man with his stupid hair and the stupid emotional wilderness that was obviously present in his stony heart. Maybe he didn't have one, I smouldered bitterly.

And so I followed his lead. I sat down beside him, pretending nothing had happened, pretending he hadn't just noticed me and saved me from another trip to the nurse's office.

Then a stray thought struck me. What if he thought that I was the one who had started the rumour about us? What if he thought that I was hung up on him? Worse, what if he suddenly decided to take an interest in me?

I was so caught up in my inner maelstrom that I failed to notice that Mr Banner was quite clearly not here. It was only when Jessica excitedly squealed that she'd heard about some top-secret rule that allowed us to ditch class if the teacher didn't turn up after the first fifteen minutes, that I emerged from the bubble I'd found myself in.

Confused, I turned around and found myself eye to eye with Cullen. Then he did the most unexpected thing. He raised an eyebrow, curled his lip and smirked.

My God.

Completely convinced that even if I wasn't imagining this situation the smirk was clearly not intended for me, I turned and peered over my shoulder. But there was no one else in eye-line.

My God.

It wasn't speech but, in that moment, I was convinced that it was something better.

I was aware of a background noise, but it was far away and divorced from me as though someone had turned a radio down so low that it was only possible to make out the odd beat of music. I whipped my head back to Cullen and found that the smirk was slowly turning into a frown. Crap. Not good.

Open your mouth. Open your mouth, Bella. You idiot, open your mouth and speak so he doesn't think you're a mute.

"Hi," I blurted out, shamefully and inexplicably breathless. I made a mental note to kick myself for it later on. His smirk returned just as slowly, rounded just enough to make me think it had changed into a smile, and he jerked his head towards the other side of the classroom. I followed his gaze. Sure enough, Jessica appeared to be rounding up the troops. She, Lauren, Mike and a few more people I had never and would never hang out with were huddled together, taking up a couple of desks and complaining about having to stay in the classroom.

"I say we go, right now," Jessica pouted, digging around her bag for something.

"I'm with Jess. This totally blows."

Oh Lauren, the milk of human kindness flows from your breast.

"I-I don't know guys. My mom would be so mad if we got in trouble."

There was a soft chuckle to my left at Mike's words, and it made me want to laugh out loud because, whatever his faults, it appeared that Cullen could at least see the utter hilarity of this insular little school.

It was at that point that Jessica chose to look haughtily over and, once she had me in her sights, sent me a glare that I'm sure could have matched that of Satan himself.

"What do you think, Edward? Do we go?" She shouted over. Trying not to look surprised, I attempted to glance discreetly at him. I'd just like to say, for the record, that when she fluttered her eyelashes at him I wasn't speculating whether or not they'd slept together. And I definitely wasn't tempted to ask him if her fake nails didn't cut the hell out of his back.

"You can if you want to."

Now, it wasn't like I hadn't ever heard him speak (I had, hence me thinking that he was just an asshole for not speaking to me), but I'd never heard him talk so close to me.

And he couldn't sound like Elmo, could he?

"But what are you going to do?" Jessica asked, and even I could make out the flirtation in the question. If I was Mike, I'd have been worried enough to drag my gaze from Lauren's overflowing cleavage to his flighty girlfriend. Then again, it was Jessica.

"I think I'll stay here."

"Why? Banner's a complete no-show. Ergo, we have no reason to sit here wasting our time when we could be doing way more important things."

"Like what? Staring at your reflection?" I muttered under my breath, reaching into my bag to take a book out. It was impossible for her to have heard me but I presumed that the combination of my snarky expression and Cullen's muffled laughter must have clued her in as to the tone of what I'd said.

"Ugh, Bella. You're such a dork. I can't understand how you ever deluded Mike into taking the slightest bit of interest in you. I mean, look at her hair," she snapped back, addressing the last part to her group of minions.

I tried really, really hard not to be affected by what she had said but I couldn't help the downturn of my mouth or the way I pulled my hair free from behind my ear as if it would shield her bitchiness from me. If Jessica sensed it, she'd pounce. A lioness victorious.

"Hey, Jessica. Why don't you leave now? I'll stay and explain everything if Banner ever shows so Michael's mother won't go cataclysmic."

She seemed as shocked as I was by Cullen's interjection but then gave him a wide smile, jumped down off the table she'd settled herself on and then flounced out the door, her followers in tow. Still, she found time to glare at me again. Great.

The departure of that crowd left only a few people in the classroom and, five minutes later, they'd dispersed so that Cullen and I were the only people in the room.

"You can go too, if you want," I offered quietly, finally turning my attention to the book I'd pulled out earlier. He just shook his head but didn't do anything else. He just sat there, silent.

The tick-tick-tock of the jarring clock counted the passing moments of time and I was just about to throw my book – and the French it contained – out the window when a noise distracted me from my inability to grasp the fundamentals of a foreign language.

"I like your hair."

Did he just-? Was that...?

Wait. Hang on. The guy had never spoken to me over the space of twelve months and the first thing he said was that he liked my hair? Hello, left-field.

"Thanks." It was weak and I could barely keep my voice from cracking but at least it was a response.

"I mean, I don't see anything wrong with it. It's perfectly normal hair. I mean nice. It's nice. Not that I'm an expert on hair. I'm not gay or anything."

Had I not been so taken aback by the sight of a speaking and flustered Cullen, I would have taken the chance to say something about cowboys. But I was taken aback. A hell of a lot taken aback.

"Thanks?"

He ran one hand jerkily through his own hair (unlike most of the other guys at Forks High, he didn't use product. For this I was grateful), and let out a small breath, "You must think I'm an idiot."

"Not an idiot, no." Asshole jerkface, maybe, but not idiot.

"You're reading Darrieussecq?"

And hi there left-field's close friend: whiplash.

"Uh, yeah. It's really strange though. I think," I lowered my voice even though there was no one else there. "I think she's turning into a pig."

He didn't even bother to smother his laugh, "A stand against corporatism and the political system. Have you gotten to the werewolf part yet?"

"Werewolf? There's a werewolf?"

He laughed again at my obliviousness. "Yes."

"Hang on," I began, remembering that he wasn't in my French class, "You don't take French."

"No."

"And yet you know this book?"

"Well, yes."

"How?"

"I like reading."

"In a foreign language?"

"It's not really," he said then, upon my befuddled expression, he explained, "My mother's parents were French. She passed on the language."

"Oh."

The only thing Renee had passed on to me was a pair of worn, flower covered, hippy jeans.

"Anyway, I'm more of a Classics kind of guy."

I really had no clue what to say to that, so I just nodded and he dropped the subject. While I was searching my head for a conversation starter (I'd just got him talking, and I'd like that experience to last for more than a few minutes) the bell gave three short blasts, signalling the end of class.

"I guess Mr Banner isn't showing up then."

"No."

I gathered up my things and tossed them carelessly into my bag, realising with a groan that I'd have to gather up all the stray pens once my mind was in a somewhat stable state and Cullen was far, far away.

"Bye then," I rushed, hoping that I could make it to the door without causing myself an injury. I didn't think it possible seeing as my legs were currently the very definition of jelly.

"Wait!" He called out and a few moments later he appeared beside me. I tried to ignore the way his bag strap pulled down the side of his shirt, revealing a hint of his chest underneath. "What do you have next?"

"Um..." I stalled while forcing my brain to work, "Trig."

"Do you want some company on the way there?"

I can only blame being stunned for my nod of acceptance. Whatever it was, he grinned and, moving ahead, held the door open for me.

It was only when I was listening to something Pythagorean in a blissfully reasonable frame of mind that I realised precisely what had just happened.

Edward Cullen, asshole extraordinaire, had spoken to me.

And Edward Cullen, asshole extraordinaire, had just walked me to class.

Well damn.

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**AN: No, this isn't a mirage. This is an update. Just in case anyone was wondering, real life was hectic and once I started back with the story I felt as though I'd written myself into something of a hole. I was going to revise it but then realised that doing so would lose the essence of the story. So I thought about it and I've tried to make it so that the story isn't moving too fast as it was before. I hope everyone enjoyed the chapter and the Edward-ness of it all (I prefer Jasper but meh). Twilight, of course, belongs to Stephenie Meyer, You Spin Me Round belongs to Dead or Alive (not Flo Rida) and the book Edward and Bella talk about is called Truismes by Marie Darrieussecq. It really is quite weird. And she does turn into a pig. And there's a werewolf.**

**Here's the link to the song used in the title, just delete the spaces: http:/ www . youtube . com / watch?v=zJv5qLsLYoo**

**Anyway, please review!**

**Reviews are better than Edward walking you to class. (Well, sort of)**


	7. About a Girl: Interlude 2

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**About a Girl: Interlude Two**

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_JPOV_

I don't know what The Virgin Bride did to The Moody Bastard but for his sake I hope it involved lots and lots of fist pumping. He actually bounded (yes, _JPO__bounded_ – this is not acceptable. My friends do not bound) his way to his car with some stupid ass smile plastered all over his Abercrombie face. Honestly, if we hadn't been the closest thing Forks had to blood brothers then I'd have had no compunction in wiping that smirk off his face with the help of Mr Right Hook. As it was, I took an extra long drag from my cigarette before stumping it on the ground with my foot and leaning further back on the hood of the Daddy Mobile.

And yes, Jessica Stanley, I did see that dirty little look you sent me. We'll sort something out for next week when Maria's out of town. Saying that, she might be up for some other girl action...

"Jasper, please do not get erect on my Volvo," I heard him call out, as I looked up again I saw that he'd come within easy distance of being able to see how excited I'd gotten at the thought of Jessica Stanley's very enthusiastic response.

I flipped him the bird before discreetly righting myself. "Eddie, Eddie, Eddie – if only you knew what went on in your Volvo two Saturdays ago."

"I do actually," he replied quickly, moving around to the driver's door, "Esme had some benefit thing on. We all went." I opened my mouth but before I had the chance to speak Edward cut me off, "I swear to God, Jasper, if the next thing out of your mouth involves Esme and your perverted brain then I am chucking you out of this car and making you hitch a ride off Rosalie for the rest of the year."

I shuddered as I opened the passenger's door, scrunching my nose at the smell that wafted out off the interior. "What the hell, man?" He just looked up innocently from where he sat behind the wheel. "Is that...Is that the smell of a just felled tree?"

He had the nerve to smirk, "Pine-fresh."

"Ugh." It took a moment for me to settle in the car and be able to breathe without the urge to vomit. "And why was this thing necessary?" I asked, inspecting the luminous cardboard cut-out that dangled from the front mirror.

"Because you stank the car out with your cancer sticks."

"That is a very unoriginal nickname."

"So's Eddie," he scowled back, starting the ignition. "And if you hate the smell of cleanliness-"

"That's not cleanliness. That's the smell of $5 of factory made chemical nastiness."

"If you hate the smell of cleanliness," he persevered, "Then you have two options: forget that your sister's a heinous bitch and ride with her-"

"No way. There is absolutely no way I can sit with her in an enclosed space for an extended period of time and listen to her blabbing about her sex life. It may actually force me to tear my ears out."

He just smirked at me as he started the car, "Sounds like a good plan."

"And option two?" I asked, whirling the window down as quickly as possible.

"You actually use your bike."

I looked at him in horror. Surely he wasn't being serious? "What? Touch Desdemona? Unacceptable, man." He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye and raised one eyebrow. Fuck, I hated that eyebrow. "Think of what the cretins at this school would do to her!" The eyebrow was still there. "I'd end up killing someone," I reasoned. "And that, Edward, that would be bad."

He turned his attention back to the road but made sure to give me the finger. I turned the radio over to something other than the classical shit he obsessed over, sat back and closed my eyes. A few moments later The Moody Bastard cut into my solitude.

"You know, at least if you went to prison that would solve your transportation problems."

Hello Eddie, meet my middle finger.

"Fuck off and drive."

"That's a bit of an oxymoron." The smirk was obvious in his snide as fuck voice.

"And I don't give a shit. Now, are you going to drive or am I going to have to tell Bella about the time I walked in on you doing a little...self-servicing?"

"Shut it, Jasper."

I laughed, enjoying his discomfort. "And, remind me, what was it you called out? I mean, I thought it sounded like her name but it would be really embarrassing if you were actually thinking about a girl called Ella or something like that."

"Don't...you...dare," he breathed out. It was almost worth opening my eyes to see the vein bulging in his forehead.

"Just drive, my man, just drive."

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**AN: Just a little interlude with Jasper and Edward while I attempt to write the next proper chapter. Hope you enjoyed! Click review!**


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